Conceal, Don't Feel
The planet beyond the TIE's cockpit is beautiful, in a twisted way. A marble of black obsidian hangs motionless against the backdrop of an enormous gas giant, wreathed in a halo of thick clouds lit red by the light from its surface. Delicate veins crawl over the night side of the planet like cracks in broken glass, radiating from larger pockets of surface lava that simmer with heat.
This is what Arendelle looked like, last she saw it. She forcefully pushes the image from her mind.
It's been a while since she's been to the Mustafar system. She scans the star-speckled void around the gas giant for any sign of Nur, the water moon that was the closest thing she had to a home for over a decade. She doesn't find it; the starmap from the cockpit holoprojector shows Nur as currently on the opposite side of the planet.
In any case, the Fortress Inquisitorius isn't her destination this time.
The planet of Mustafar widens into a long red horizon as she leans forward on the throttle, guiding the interceptor down toward the roiling clouds. The holomap zooms in, showing the position of her spacecraft with a blinking chevron, drawing her a path to the surface with sharp arrows. The edges of the solar arrays glow red-hot as the TIE plunges down into the heavy atmosphere, opaque mists obscuring the cockpit in a soup of volcanic gas. She corrects her course with light nudges on the flight sticks, riding the blinking warning lights as air currents buffet the craft from all directions. Her eyes flit rapidly between the instruments on the dashboard, but her hands are steady.
The TIE interceptor comes stock with a guidance computer to help the pilot maintain trajectory during difficult maneuvers. She had the computer on hers removed. No sense in building reliance on automation when she can fly just as well without it. No sense in relinquishing control.
An altitude warning beeps and she pulls back on the sticks, leveling the interceptor out of its steep dive. Gradually, the noxious clouds part to reveal a hellish landscape below. Black, craggy peaks jut above gorges flowing with molten stone, bleeding rivulets of fresh lava down their slopes and belching acrid smoke into the sky. The floes converge to a single stream snaking into the distance, where the terrain plateaus toward the sweeping ridge of a long cliff. There, the river is swallowed by the base of a towering monolith of dark durasteel rising from the precipice's edge.
Fortress Vader. She's heard stories about this place. All Inquisitors have. After all, the Inquisitors summoned here are seldom seen again.
The path on the holomap guides her to a featureless landing pad extending over the lip of the cliff. She flips the switch to engage the landing stabilizers, angling the interceptor backward to slow its momentum. The scream of the ion engines drops in pitch, falling silent as the bottom edges of the solar arrays meet the ground with a soft jolt.
She takes a deep breath before opening the escape hatch.
Heat assaults her in a tangible wave. The stench of sulphur fills her nostrils even through the filters in her mask. Black clouds glower down from a sky so thickly overcast, the afternoon sun that struggles through seems barely more than feeble moonlight. Blistering winds yank on her capes as she takes measured strides across the landing pad toward the towering doorway ahead. Of their own accord, her eyes trace the structure up to where its tip pierces the black clouds and disappears from view.
Frost crawls unbidden across her palms. All of a sudden, she wants nothing more than to turn and run in the opposite direction. She ignores the urge. The atmosphere of this place is deliberate, she knows. Fear is a weapon more powerful than even the Force. It was Vader's first lesson. This is Vader's home.
She stops a step away from the smooth black door, steeling herself with another breath. She will not show fear to Darth Vader, because if she does, she will die. That much is certain.
As she takes the final step toward the door, it slides into the floor with a hollow rattle. A man stands awaiting her on the other side, rheumatic fingers and gnarled toes poking from the formless folds of a black, hooded robe. She hesitates. Somehow, she expected Vader to live alone.
The man bows as she crosses the threshold.
"Twelfth Sister." The words rasp harshly from a dessicated throat. "Lord Vader is expecting you."
Without awaiting a response, he turns and walks down the hall, bare feet padding on smooth steel. She follows a ways behind, suppressing the instinct to reach for her lightsaber as the door slides shut behind her with a boom. It will do her no good here.
The hallway is long, barely lit by the faintly-glowing strips framing the passage. Doorways loom from the shadows of the walls on either side as she continues deeper into the bowels of the massive structure. The ceiling seems impossibly far away. The low rumble of moving magma behind the walls reminds her of the lowest levels of the Fortress Inquisitorius. It reminds her of her Initiate cell.
How far does this fortress stretch? Where does Vader keep all the slain Jedi sent here for processing? The thought of being surrounded by the decaying bodies of thousands of her enemies is less than comforting.
Ahead of her, the man walks with the single-minded purpose of a droid. There's nothing to do but to follow. Inexorably, the Fortress engulfs her in its vast, brutal symmetry. It feels like she's been walking this hallway for hours. The slap of her guide's feet is like the ticking of some grotesque clock. Counting down.
Without warning, a doorway slides open in the distance, sending a long trapezoid of orange light washing over the dark floor. The man moves to the side of the opening, turning back and gesturing toward it expectantly.
She clenches her fists and steps through, keeping her gaze fixed firmly ahead.
The next room is wide and cavernous. The path continues forward as a bridge over a seemingly bottomless ravine, ending at the opposite wall where it's received by a large, hangar-size door. A wide window wraps around the right-hand wall of the room, offering a panoramic view of the burning plains spread far below.
The door ahead is currently closed. The door behind her seals with a hiss as she steps onto the bridge. She halts. The wind whistles beyond the glass of the window. She continues forward until she's at the center of the room, where the bridge widens into a circular platform.
Nowhere to go. She waits.
When the door on the opposite side slides open, she can't stop herself from flinching. Steam billows out in a cloud that hugs the floor, pouring over the edge of the bridge and into the abyss. From the fog strides a familiar figure, sharply silhouetted by the blinding lights of the room beyond.
She drops to one knee as Darth Vader steps onto the bridge, his every stride a peal of thunder off the hollow steel beneath his boots.
"Twelve."
"My Lord, you summoned me?" She doesn't look up, doesn't rise.
"Yes." The blunt tips of the boots stop at the edge of the platform, just within her field of vision. "Recent events have come to my attention. Events that cause me concern."
She waits for Vader to continue. He does not.
"I underestimated Hans Westergaard." She fights to keep her voice even, devoid of emotion. "I let Nightsister Merrin escape. I will not make the same mistake again."
"Hans Westergaard is of no concern to me. Your willingness to break protocol is."
The hollow suction of Vader's breaths echoes in the tense silence. She keeps her gaze pointed firmly at the ground. The boots start moving again.
"Tell me, Inquisitor. What were you hoping to find in that databank?" Breath in. Breath out.
"I don't know. I was only seeking what Cal Kestis found before me, so I could better understand the motives of my enemy."
"And yet through your actions, you allowed one of your enemies to escape. Careless. Reckless." Breath in. Breath out. The boots stop, much closer this time. "Look at me."
She raises her eyes to find Vader towering over her. He reaches with a gloved hand, and she hears the seals on her mask hiss as they come undone. It flies into Vader's outstretched palm, exposing her face to the dry air. Strands of hair tickle her bare forehead.
"When I took you, you were only a child. A child who had seen things no child should ever see. I know the fate of your people still haunts you. I sense the fire that still burns within you. You want answers that cannot be found."
"Cal Kestis was searching for references to my family's royal crest. Why was he searching for information about Arendelle?" Unfiltered sulphur tastes sour on her tongue. "And the girl with him. There's something about her-"
"Yes, the girl. Cal Kestis has taken an apprentice."
"Nightsister Merrin, she said something when I questioned her." She forces herself to stare straight into the soulless eyepieces of Vader's mask. "The witch said I had an aura of magick. She said the girl did, too."
"You are an Inquisitor, not a detective." Vader's tone is hard. "Your mission is simply to eliminate the Jedi threat. The motives of the Jedi and the identity of the girl are of no importance to you."
"No importance?" Anger simmers at the bottom of her chest, burning away at her sense of caution like a slow fuse. "How can I accomplish my mission if my own superiors are hiding things from me? My troopers and I physically pursued Cal Kestis onto one of those stations. Surely that's relevant! Why wasn't I granted access for my investigation?"
"The Legacy Databank is not pertinent to your investigation. You were wasting your time."
"If you're so concerned about how I spend my time, why summon me? The Stinger Mantis has been located on Tatooine! The Invictus was already sent-"
Only when she feels the air rumble does she realize she's gone too far.
Space itself seems to twist around her, grabbing her body at the molecular level and hoisting her half a metre into the air. There's a hard pressure in her throat, like she's being choked by an invisible vice. Vader stares up at her, his hand outstretched, gloved fingers curling into claws.
"I will not tolerate insubordination from my Inquisitors."
Ahtohallan vibrates soundlessly in the air between them. Her lungs scream for air. Her head swims in a thick fog. But even as the darkness creeps in from the edges of her vision, she does not struggle.
She must not show fear.
"I summoned you here to give you a second chance. Understand that I do not do this lightly. Go to Ilum. Finish the mission. Do not let your people die in vain, Elsa of Arendelle."
All at once, the pressure is released. She collapses to the cold floor, gasping for breath, her vision swimming with stars. Pushing herself up on trembling arms, she watches as Vader strides back across the bridge, his footsteps fading as the distance between them grows. The door closes over his triangular silhouette, its serrated edges locking together with a low thud that shakes the floor.
She finds the mask beside her on the edge of the platform. Rising unsteadily to her feet, she takes it in her hands for a moment, tracing over the burn marks with a gloved thumb. She draws one more breath before closing the mask over her face.
She will finish the mission. She always does.
But first, she will find what Vader is hiding from her.
Heavily inspired by that scene from Rogue One ;)